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even the most ardent elon musk
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stan will admit their lord and savior
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hasn't exactly delivered on his promise
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of properly autonomous self-driving
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vehicles
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yet anyway tesla's flamboyant ceo has
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repeatedly suggested we'd be there by
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now
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and frankly we aren't but the so-called
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autopilot feature available on all
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modern teslas is quite a marvelous feat
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of engineering nonetheless
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what enables it to detect hazards up
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ahead how does it then go about making
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sense of that information is it better
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at driving than human beings
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join us today as we pop the metaphorical
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hood and take a peek into how autopilot
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actually works for an eye-opening
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introduction to just how sophisticated
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tesla's driving algorithm has become of
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late
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take a look at this video released back
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in january 2020. merging
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input from an array of smart sensory
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devices the car's onboard computer is
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clearly capable of identifying and
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tracking its fellow vehicles on the road
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in real time not only that
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it's able to differentiate between an
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impressive range of other potential
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hazards besides
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everything from lane lines and painted
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arrows to crossings stop signs
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trash cans the incline of the road up
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ahead and even
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random puddles are all noted and
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addressed at least as quickly
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crucially as a human being could spot
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these things so how does it do it
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at the most basic level visual feedback
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is fed into the system via tesla's eight
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on-board cameras
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three of these are mounted on the
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windscreen each slightly different from
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the other and suitable for very
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different ranges
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the car's main front-facing camera is
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calibrated for visual recognition
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up to 150 meters there's also a wide
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angled camera that can see more broadly
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up to a range of 60 meters and a narrow
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field camera which peers into the
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distance as far away as 250 meters
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in addition there's four more regular
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cameras mounted on each side of the
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vehicle
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two are slotted rear wood and another
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two are angled forward for merging and
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maneuvering into tight spots
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and finally there's a rear camera which
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itself boasts a range of up to 50 meters
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used both as a run-of-the-mill parking
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camera and another data source feeding
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crucial situational data back to the
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central computer
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these cameras whose visual fields
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overlap providing the necessary
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redundancy which is a cornerstone of
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tesla's safe design philosophy
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are only part of the picture a
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front-facing radar that detects objects
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up to 160 meters away by bouncing
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radio waves off of them is a key
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component in the sensor array it's
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reported that tesla is currently
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planning to integrate a radar with twice
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that range into its newer models with
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slicker processing capacity
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courtesy of cutting edge radar design by
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israeli tech startup arbor robotics
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tesla's fondness for radar is actually a
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controversial topic within the fledgling
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autonomous car industry
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most other companies working to bring
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similar vehicles to market think ford gm
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or waymo prefers so-called lidar which
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is similar to radar except it bounces
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light off of objects in order to
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ascertain their distance and form at
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tesla's autonomy day last year
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elon musk offered this scathing critique
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of lidar technology
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lidar is a fool's errand he informed a
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wrapped crowd anyone relying on lidar is
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doomed they are expensive sensors that
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are unnecessary as rand continued it's
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like having a whole bunch of expensive
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appendices
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like one appendix is bad well now you
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have a whole bunch of them
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it's ridiculous you'll see although
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lidar's prohibitively high cost was one
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reason why radar was preferred by tesla
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early on musk doubled down on his
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loathing for the medium in october even
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as the price of lidar started to fall
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even if lidar was free
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we wouldn't put it on he thundered not
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least because lidar is notoriously
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unreliable in rainy or dusty conditions
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teslas are also fitted with 12 small
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dots situated around the car
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each of which provides essential
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short-range sensory input
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up to about eight meters through the
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magic of ultrasound
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this medium provides tesla with what has
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been described as a protective cocoon
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around the vehicle
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enabling it to detect when an object a
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crash barrier say or a dog
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is getting too close for comfort working
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together in concert
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this imaginative fusion of conventional
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cameras sophisticated radar and 360
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degree ultrasound
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help tesla stay finally attuned to their
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surroundings add that to the car's ultra
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precise gps
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tracking and world-class mapping systems
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and you have a vehicle that's
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substantially smarter than most human
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beings at assessing where it is
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and what's going on out there on the
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mean streets of course when it comes to
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safe motoring
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sensory input is only part of the story
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so how is all that lovely data organized
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and processed with his characteristic
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knack for modest understatement
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elon musk has described the new
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processor at the beating heart of his
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iconic car as the best chip in the world
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tesla's so-called full self-driving chip
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shipped in all new models
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is a 260 square millimeter chunk of
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prime samsung silicon
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boasting no fewer than six billion
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transistors each chip
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there's two aboard again ensuring that
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all important redundancy
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is capable of performing some 26
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trillion operations a second
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this means it can respond in real time
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to any of the multi-various hazards
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brought to its attention from that smart
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sensory array we talked about just now
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there's more alongside the humdrum
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pre-programmed aspects of tesla's
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driving algorithm
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speed limits stop signs and the like the
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car's silicon brain
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also has the ability to learn and learn
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it most certainly does
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not only from its own native experience
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fed by those sensors
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but from data harvested across the
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entire global fleet of teslas
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and their own sensor arrays every single
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tesla on the road
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and the company manufactured half a
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million of them in 2020 alone
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collects detailed information on its
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environment and feeds it back to hq
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for other motorists to subconsciously
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make use of despite this system's
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obvious brilliance it has upset
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some who were reportedly suspicious of
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tesla's so-called shadow mode their beef
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is the fact their pricey new model when
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in shadow mode
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essentially pretends to be an autonomous
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vehicle as in it makes but never
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executes
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a driving plan based on the data
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available to it and reports back to hq
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whenever its plan deviates from that of
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the real flesh and blood driver
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this is of course designed to refine and
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improve the algorithm and fulfill
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elon musk's dream of deploying autonomy
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at scale still it bugs people from a
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privacy point of view and perhaps they
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have a point so how autonomous
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actually are the latest teslas they're
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shipped with all the hardware elon musk
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reckons is necessary for achieving the
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self-driving dream but for now the
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furthest towards that ambition these
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cars actually get
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is tesla's so-called autopilot mode the
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newest enhanced bells and whistles
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autopilot mode which tesla drivers can
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order over the air for apprenticely
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eight thousand dollars as an optional
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extra
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offers dynamic traffic aware cruise
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control customers can also get automatic
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lane changing for their spend which can
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respond to either sat nav route plans or
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an impulsive manual flick of the turn
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signal
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owners also get the fun ultimate
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bragging rights feature of smart summon
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however all these come with caveats
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smart summon which in theory enables
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tesla drivers to flick a button on the
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app and summon their shiny motor from
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its parking space to wherever they're
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proudly standing
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is only recommended for use on private
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driveways and despite that slick traffic
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aware cruise control system which
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maintains
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speeds until the vehicle ahead slows or
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stops drivers are still legally required
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to keep their hands on the wheel at
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basically all times in order to take
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over should anything go awry the car
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will complain and ultimately stop
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altogether if hands aren't on the wheel
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constantly
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not exactly autonomous autonomy in
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vehicles is currently rated on an
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internationally recognized one to five
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scale
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that's so-called level one automation a
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single aspect of driving is automated
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for instance traffic aware cruise
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control this has been around for quite a
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few years now
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at the other end of the scale level five
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automation promises the ultimate fantasy
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of full vehicular autonomy
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meaning the driver can catch up on
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emails watch the scenery or simply enjoy
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a well-earned nap
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right now tesla is reluctantly marooned
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at level two with only a couple of
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aspects of their driving experience
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automated
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most notably speed control and lane
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changing modern testers are technically
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quite capable of say taking an exit ramp
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and moving between highways
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but legal and regulatory edicts insist
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that a person still be in charge
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at the wheel at all times and this is
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quite right and proper by the way for
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now at least
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tragic failures can and do happen like
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the passing of 38 year old apple
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employee walter huang
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whose tesla on autopilot mode slammed
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into a concrete barrier while he was
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reportedly playing on his phone
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in march 2019 50 year old jeremy bear
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and banners model 3
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slammed into a tractor trailer
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attempting to cross a florida highway at
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68 miles per hour
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shearing the roof clean off his car and
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sadly ending his life
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so despite its undeniable sophistication
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and the bullish predictions of elon musk
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autopilot isn't quite ready yet
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supporters will point out
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rightly perhaps that self-driving teslas
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are on the whole better than human
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drivers
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certainly they never get drunk or tired
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or stressed still
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each and every tragic mishap in even the
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most vaguely autonomous vehicle
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sets back progress by months if not
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years it's probably fair to trust that
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elon musk's brainchild
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an ingenious mixture of smart sensors
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lightning fast ai and crowd-sourced
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machine learning
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will get us where we're going eventually
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what do you think should regulators
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lighten up and grant test a more
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autonomous
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freedom in its current form does tesla's
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setup even deserve the name autopilot
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let us know in the comments and don't
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forget to hit subscribe for more free
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